I started my trip from my house in Antipolo to Caliraya at around 6PM via Rizal's national road. I decided to take this path instead of the Antipolo-SouthSuperhiway-LosBanos-Caliraya route because it is much shorter and the trip is less than 2 hours (roughly 1.5 hours if no traffic). I arrived at Hilltop at  around 8PM  and the other members of the ALP who joined the stargazing session were already having their dinner.  After a quick dinner and some chitchat, the group started to setup their scopes on top of a bridge at the side of the  Caliraya Man-made lake.  That was around 9PM.  This time i brought my 130lbs setup with me which consists of the 10" Hardin Optical Newtonian tube, the heavy ATLAS EQ mount with the SkyScan GOTO upgrade including the 40lbs counterweights which half of it are dumbbells bought at a local department store. I also brought a pair of 7AH maintenance free batteries. There were two target tasks i prepared for that evening, first one is to test a couple of astrotoys i brought with me and the second one is to enjoy a good night of visual observation.   My initial plan was to test the SkyScan GOTO upgrade, the Meade DSI pro which i ordered at IslandEyepiece Canada (Brian of Island Eyepiece was very helpful to me in facilitating these orders, and to test the DFK31BF03 Imaging Source Camera which was purchased from Germany. The Atlas Mount  originally came with the standard dual drive tracking stepper motors and handcontroller which is powered by a 12V power source (8 Size D batteries). The handcontroller allows you do sidereal  tracking on the Atlas mount with manual sky object centering using the handcontroller buttons but no GOTO function. The SkyScan upgrade basically is a replacement of the original handcontroller, motor controller board, and stepper mot ors of the Atlas mount.  With the upgrade, it gave me additional functions such as GOTO, fast slewing (x800 of sidereal), and other functions which is very useful for precise tracking and astroimaging. By the way, the original  handcontroller, stepper motor board, and the stepper motors are for sale.

 

It took me 30 minutes to set the whole thing including polar alignment and 1-star sky alignment. I had to  ask Jett to help me with the tube and counterweights as i already graduated from almost a month of PT sessions due to a herniated L4-L5 disks. (I just hope i did not pass the same problem to Jett after helping me carry that tube and weights.). It was almost 10PM when i finished my 1-star alignment with Sirius and got my first mount GOTO object dead center on the 20mm eyepiece FOV and that was M42. With the mount i decided to proceed to a good run of visual observations using the SkyScan GOTO Tour function (now is this a lazy task or what ?). Technology really did a lot in contributing to the amateur astronomy field. I spent around 10 minutes observing M42  under the dark skies of Caliraya. Nebulosity details is much clearer as compared to observations made at Antipolo. After M42, i decided to punch in the rest of the Goto tours as suggested by the Sky Scan hand controller. The GOTO tour include 5 to 10 minutes of visual observation of the following sky objects;  51 Whirlpool Galaxy, M104 Sombrero Galaxy, M44 Beehive cluster and other visible DSOs. Also did a couple of GOTO runs on some bright stars; Sirius, Spica, Alnitak (one of my favorites as i am using this always as a guidestar for Autoguiding in imaging the HorseHead Nebula), and the ever popular Betelguese. At some point i decided to play around with the slewing functions of the EQ mount with the Green laser pointer (mounted on the telescope tube) activated. The effect is awesome as you get to see the laser beam sweep across the sky as the scope slews at 800 times the sidereal speed. It was some sort of a mini laser light show. At another instance, i pointed the scope at Omega Centauri using the green laser pointer as a guide. With the help of the other ALPers, we directed the scope (using the skyscan handcontroller) and using the laser beam as a nakedeye  reference to the general area where the Omega Centauri star cluster is located. True enough, as i looked at the 20mm eyepiece,  Omega Centauri is within the field of view. And this was done without the aid of GOTO, viewfinders, and reddot pointers.

 

After the visual, i decided to test ccd imaging. I was initially planning to test the Meade DSI pro under dark skies but then i realized i might not have enough PC Notebook batter power to test the DFK camera under  dark skies. I decided  to proceed with the DFK firewire camera test instead. This is the same brand of cameras Chris was using when he imaged and discovered the new Red Spot (Red Jr.) at Jupiter. Using the camera at Antipolo proved to be futile for me as i have not encountered a good seeing condition yet. Seeing conditions  at the skies of Caliraya  was still improving when i decided to do a test run. I initially pointed the scope to Saturn and took a couple of video captures using the DFK firewire camera. Then I pointed the scope at Jupiter and took a couple of 400 frames capture using the firewire camera on a Power Mate 5X barlow and the IC Capture 2.0 software. The image came out a little fuzzy as the planet is wobbling, boiling and dancing due to a slight hint of atmospheric distortions.

 

 

That was around 11PM (conditions did improve a couple of hours after that but lo and behold - no more pc batteries :p) After using the 5x power mate, Brian told me to use the 2X instead as this will improve the contrast despite the current seeing conditions.  After a couple of 400 frame test captures with the 2X, the resulting image came out  better than when i was using the 5X. One of Jupiter image capture runs with Brian's 2X actually made it to Astronomy.com's "Picture of the Day". I ran out of PC batteries at around 1PM. That is the time i decided to rest for a while and do a couple of rounds with the other members and check how they are doing. After that, I decided to go back to visual observation particularly on the Io shadow that is casting on the Jovian Planet. Visual observation lasted until around 3AM as the sky seeing conditions started to degrade. Clouds were already forming originating from the eastern horizon. Instead of waiting for the skies to clear up, the group decided to proceed with the usual Photo shoot. After the shoot, i took a quick nap, and left Caliraya for Antipolo at around 6AM.